SUNDANCE: DEAR WENDY (plus its trailer), MIRRORMASK and THE UPSIDE OF ANGER reviewed!

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with Blue Gecko again. What's interesting about this report is it's an exact opposite take on all three films. DEAR WENDY has had all positive reviews (some "it was alright" positive and one or two "It was amazing!" positive), same with THE UPSIDE OF ANGER... I believe the first review we got for it claimed it to be one of the best of Sundance this year. Blue Gecko doesn't agree and let you know about it. MIRRORMASK got reviewed earlier today and it was a positive one, but still not very enthusiastically positive. Blue Gecko goes crazy-insane in love with it. Anyway, before we kick off the reviews, I was sent a link to the trailer for DEAR WENDY. I have to say I really dig the trailer. I think I'll give this one a shot unless all the other reviews we get echo Blue Gecko's opinion... then I may rethink that decision! Here's the trailer!

DEAR WENDY

When people discuss this film, Dogville is inevitably
going to be mentioned. Both are parables set in tiny
locals where things eventually go very, very wrong.

I caught Dogville last year at Sundance and was
floored. It was one of those haunting films that I
was thinking about for days, even weeks later. When I
saw it, I had purposely not read a thing about it;
thus, I was unaware of Lars Von Trier's
anti-Americanism, ignorant to the fact that Dogville
was supposed to be ripping hard on the country I live
in. Now that may have been von Trier's intention, but
in the process I think he came up with something much
more profound - even if it was completely
unintentional on his part. For starters, Dogville
really fails on the level of being a convincing
argument against America because it could have been
set in a village ANYWHERE - feudal France, Medieval
China, Australian Outback, Pacific Islands - whatever.
Yes, even von Trier's beloved Denmark. The story
would have been believable within its own world of
metaphor, regardless of locale or era. Ultimately, I
think the film says something more universal about
HUMAN NATURE, and that's why I liked Dogville.

Dear Wendy (screenplay by the very same Lars von
Trier), on the other hand, is so ham-fisted, so
heavy-handed that it can only be saying one of two
things: (1) America is a violent, trigger-happy,
bullying, arrogant nation; or (2) Guns are Satan's
tools, turning anyone who touches one into a
power-hungry, crazy murderer. (Michael Moore, were
you a consultant on this film?)

Now, I'm neither a card-carrying member of the NRA or
a fervent pacifist, so I wasn't taking some sort of
torrid political stance going into this film. If you
want to make a film about a point of view, that's
great. Even if it says something I ultimately
disagree with, I can even like the film if it has
other merits. But if you're going to make an
allegorical film, it needs to work on another level
besides that of allegory. (For instance, the Narnia
Chronicles are blatant Christian fables, but work as
stand-alone works of fantasy.)

Dear Wendy does nothing to merit itself a story unto
itself outside of the single point it is trying to
make. It never is able to pull us fully into the
story, does nothing to make us care about or even
understand the characters, and ultimately becomes SO
ludicrous in plot that I was rolling my eyes for the
entire last half-hour. There are FAR too many
instances of the characters acting so irrationally
that they may as well start shoving turnips up their
noses. The plot is the only thing being serviced
here, NOT character - and the plot is, ultimately,
completely and utterly ridiculous.

Quickie Plot: Dick (Jamie Bell, sometimes looking like
a young Chris Barrie), gets a gun, names it Wendy,
forms a secret club of gun-toting pacifists, and...
well, do you think things are going to go well when he
invites Sebastian, a convicted murderer, to join? Are
we supposed to believe for one minute that this makes
sense? Are we at all surprised the film ends with a
bunch of idiotic kids getting blown apart by a hail of
bullets, with the Battle Hymn of the Republic swelling
dramatically on the soundtrack? (Yeah, how's that for
subtlety?)

Oh, and it's directed by Thomas Vinterberg who
directed the laughably bad It's All About Love last
year. I wouldn't call him a bad director on his style
alone, but he REALLY needs to learn how to pick better
screenplays.

THE UPSIDE OF ANGER

I'll be upfront about this film - it wasn't bad, but
it really could have been so much more.

Terry Wolfmeyer (Joan Allen) is a raging, angry
alcoholic after her husband leaves her and their four
daughters to run off with his Swedish secretary. The
story chronicles events that occur over a three-year
period, as the family vents frustrations, deals with
various issues, and tries to heal. Oh, and they have
a neighbor, Denny (Kevin Costner) who has the hots for
the mom.

Joan Allen is, as always, great. The four actresses
who play her daughters (Alicia Witt, Keri Russell,
Erika Christensen, Evan Rachel Wood) are all beautiful
and do a decent job with what they are given. Even
Kevin Costner is surprisingly good as you get into the
film, and he gets some good scenes later on.

The screenplay could have used a few more revisions,
as there seems to be a lot of filler in this story.
This is really a shame, as the time could have been
better spent. Terry's relationship with Denny is
never as interesting as her relationships with her
daughters; The film is at its best when we see the
Wolfmeyer women interact, but too much time is wasted
on the romantic-comedy aspect. We also see some
superfluous activities of the daughters that don't
really relate to the story, or add to the
relationships of the film. This is especially the
case with the youngest daughter, played by Evan Rachel
Wood, who I swear has NO purpose except for
occasionally throwing in voice-over narrative. Alicia
Witt and Kerri Russell's characters have some good
scenes, but Erika Christensen is completely underused
as a true character, acting only as a vessel for some
later scenes in the film. I can't help but think that
the four daughters could have been easily condensed
into three characters. And for a film narrated by one
of the kids, we don't get a very good sense of the
sibling relationships. Or the mother-daughter
relationship, in 1/2 the cases.

Perhaps I'm being harsh - maybe this isn't supposed to
be a film about familial relationships. But if it
isn't, it should be, as it would have made a much more
interesting movie.

There is a revelation that happens toward the end of
the film that should be a huge emotional turning point
for every character. However, the denouement comes
far too fast and with too many unearned smiles.
According to the voice-over, anger apparently changes
who we are, but since we never see what Terry was like
before her husband left her, we have no frame of
reference to compare who she becomes in the end.

MIRRORMASK

This is, without a doubt, the best feature film I've
seen so far!

While I have little to no acquaintance with his work,
I know that Neil Gaiman (screenwriter) has a huge
following. This was evidenced in how difficult it was
to get into this film - the waiting list was over 100
people and the movie started late as the theatre
workers tried to pack everyone in. Neil Gaiman and
Dave McKean (the director) were both there and
introduced the film to the very enthusiastic crowd.
They said they were very excited to show the film,
even a bit nervous, as we were the first real audience
to see it (aside from a group of high school students
they'd shown it to earlier).

Helena, the daughter of circus owners, is rather bored
with her life as a carny. She spends her free time
sketching pen and ink drawings of strange creatures
and places and imagines a world with a black queen and
a white queen. After her mother falls ill, Helena has
a vivid dream about a fantastical world that looks
suspiciously similar to her drawings. The balance of
light and dark has been disrupted, and the white queen
has fallen into an unwakable sleep. Helena takes on
the quest to find the Mirrormask which will restore
balance to this world, awaken the white queen, and
allow her to go home.

Sure, this sounds similar to the plot of The Wizard of
Oz, Labyrinth, Spirited Away, Alice in Wonderland,
Paperhouse, The Neverending Story, and any other
number of films. So in order to make the story work
with any kind of significance, we need to have
something completely original to set it apart. No
worries there! First off, we have a wonderful lead in
Stephanie Leonidas as 15-year-old Helena: she's sweet,
beautiful, and completely likable. Even more
importantly, though, the film has a brilliant - bloody
brilliant - visual style. This is apparent from the
opening credits, which are fantastic! There are
plenty of masks in the film, both in the real world
and the fantasy world, and I couldn't help thinking
how much fun they probably had designing and building
these things. The black and white drawings by Helena,
which also pervade the fantasy world, are really cool
- I believe they were done by McKean himself. The
movie is very CGI heavy - everything in the fantasy
world was done in front of a bluescreen. And since
this is a low-budget film, some of the graphics look
like they're fresh out of the computer - this bothered
me for maybe five minutes, but the surreal quality
actually lends itself well to the story, since it IS
supposed to be a dream. The music is wonderfully
weird and fits within the whole style of the film.

I loved the imagination of this film - the different
creatures, the locales, the strange situations that
exist in this reality. I won't give any of it away,
but it's a total delight to watch this film unfold.

This film would not have been allowed to be made by
mainstream Hollywood - you could say the same thing
about the recent wonderful Spirited Away. Thank
goodness for independent films that can bring us
beautiful, imaginative visions like this! This is
also a film that would be appropriate for children (a
rarity in Sundance fare) so take your kids to see it.
It sure beats a lot of the dreadful kids movies being
churned out nowadays. If you loved Spirited Away,
you'll love Mirrormask!

Since the movie started late, I had to run off to my
next movie before they started the Q&A. This made me
very sad, as I'd have LOVED to have heard what Neil
Gaiman and Dave McKean had to say about their film! I
hope someone else who went will report on what they
said.

So there you go - not as eloquently expressed as I'd
like, but I'm getting major film-festival sleep
deprivation. More later!

I've had a passionate love/hate relationship with Lars for years. But what will put me over the edge on this one and prevent me seeing it is the fact that I'm sick to death of the film industry at large, foreign and domestic, putting me down and simplifying complicated issues unrealistically. I will not be preached at when I seek entertainment.
Now, as for MirrorMask, I would love to see the fantasy genre revived with promising films such as this one seems to be. I grew up on the Labrynths and Legends and Dragonslayers, one of my kids is a huge nut for them and she'll definitely be all over this, as will I.

The reviews were not exhaustive or checklist-like, as some talkbackers seem to like, but the reviews sure gave me a good idea of whether I'll probably like the movies being reviewed. I hope AICN will have many more Blue Gecko reviews to post in the future.